I did not know REFLECTIONS! would return to education matter so soon after the last edition of 15 April 2024 which dissected the rot in public primary schools in the country and the plight of over twenty million out-of-school children in Africa’s largest economy. The honourable minister of education, Professor Tahir Mamman “provoked” me to revisit the sector so soon. I need to state from the very first paragraph that education is too serious a matter to be left to the hands of those who desire to take us backward. The easiest route to our prosperity as a nation is through education, quality education.
Going round a few centres where this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) were being taken, the minister commented that malpractices were at a very low rate, thank goodness, as just about 100 out of nearly two million candidates were caught cheating. He then vied into an already rested matter: the age limit for those seeking admissions to tertiary schools in the country saying that the government was going to review it upwards from 16 to 18 years.
The minister did not stop there as he offered reasons for this poorly thought out would-be policy (if it could be so called) summersault: much of the woes in our tertiary institutions are caused by underaged students! He averred that these young students are not mature, unsuitable, and unable to manage their affairs and that they should remain in the controlled spaces of their parents rather than in the vibrant university environment.
Really? Truly? Seriously? Unfortunately, the professor of law and former vice chancellor of Baze University, a private university, made a baseless statement, provided no empirical evidence, stood logic on its head, and wants to govern Nigeria of twenty-first century without data.
Is Prof. Mamman saying that at Baze University, where he was at its administrative apogee, or at the law faculty of the University of Maiduguri (my university!), where he was a lecturer and head of department, or at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he was a student, majority of students’ problems came from those below age 18? He could certainly not be referring to the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom where he did his masters and doctoral degrees because in the United Kingdom, there is no age requirement for admission to university. It would be a violation of the Equality Act to have one. However, if you’re under 18, perceived maturity and academic performance will be considered before you’re offered admission. Few students gain admission at age 15. In fact, there is a celebrated case of Ruth Lawrence who was admitted into Oxford University at age 12 to study Mathematics. This was not an isolated case because in 2015, a Mathematics prodigy and home-schooled Esther Okade from Nigeria (well, British born Nigerian!) became one of the youngest UK university students at the age of 10! The news was widely publicized in Nigeria. Another math’s prodigy Yasha Asley became Britain’s youngest employee at the University of Leicester where he was admitted at the age of 12 straight from primary school.
In the United States, age is not an issue for admissions into university either. In 2016, 12-year-old Jeremy Shuler was admitted into the Cornell University in New York as its youngest ever student. In neighboring Ghana, 13-year-old Ruth Ama Gyan-Darkwa was admitted into its prestigious Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology to study, again, mathematics. Her older sister was admitted into the same university at age 14! In Nigeria, few gifted students go to university at age 15; but age 16 is very common and should be encouraged.
This issue reminds me of an argument I had with friends some years back in Eket, Akwa Ibom State where I held the strong position that age 16 was ideal while my friends advocated for even lower ages. I wonder how they would feel now about this plan to even raise the bar to 18! Quite characteristic of me, I checked out the age that the Minister graduated and I noticed that he left school at age 29, when secondary school education lasted for five years, and studying law was a four year program! Were it today, the minister would have had his first degree at age 31! Could this have informed him on the position he wants to take more than data and science?
Just as I was pondering over this topic, I found a post by the cerebral Obiageli Ezekwesili, herself a former Minister of Education, on her X (I am not going to say ‘formally Twitter’ as many publications and TV channels do because it’s well over a year since the name change and all those who knew Twitter know that it is now called X) dated 26 April 2024. Her post referred to a reminder of her previous post a few years back (that should be 2022) when the then minister of aviation Hadi Abubakar Sirika, now a friend of EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission), decided to spend $300M on a fantom Air Nigeria project. In her 2022 or so post, she had said “if I were President and my Aviation Minister sent me a Memo asking for my approval to set up a ‘National Airline’ with initial capital of Federal Government’s $300 million, and acquire airplanes, I will instantly send him a reply. It will be: Goodbye. Pls, hand over the Ministry to the PermSec”.
This is not my point; if it were, I would have digressed in vain. This is the point: in the April 26, 2024 post, Dr. (Mrs.) Ezekwesili said and I quote: “Hmmmm. I saw this tweet image (she’s referring to the one I earlier stated about the Air Nigeria fiasco) this morning on another platform and remembered the many times one warned against wrong policy directions in this country. You see, my academic training and professional life were firmly rooted on evidence-informed policy making. I can never just scratch my head and talk about Policy issue or make a Policy choice. Never. It is why I am these days ever so happy for our students and Alumni @TheSPPG (her Abuja-based school of public policy and governance) who are being raised on the solid skill and culture of evidence-based policymaking and strong value for data”.
In simple terms, I am saying that the minister of education’s statement that the government of President Bola Tinubu wants to raise the minimum age for entry into tertiary institutions from 16 years to 18 years because most of the problems in tertiary institutions in the country are caused by ‘underage students’ is not evidence-based and has no data to back it up. It is a fallacy, and the minister is merely scratching his head to make a backward policy for whatever reason other than the one stated. He should be stopped forthwith. Even in the 1980s when I went to university, many the age of 16 were students. I had some friends and classmates who were 16 (they would not like me to mention their names here); a colleague and a friend finished a five year degree program at the University of Ibadan at age 20! Another friend gained admission into year two (through direct entry) at age 16, having passed A levels. He missed first class in zoology by a whisker!
If all these happened in the 1980s when knowledge and information dissemination were lacking, even stifled, is it now in the age of advanced science, technological breakthroughs, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, democratization of knowledge and information at the speed of light that the government wants to take us back to Stone Age? Do we want to be sending Methuselahs to school? Shockingly, the National President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, crossed the expressway without checking by supporting the minister. As for the few members of the House of Representatives who have spoken in support of the minister, I have nothing to say because most of their children attend universities abroad, where such policy is nonexistent, so, they are not in tune with situations in Nigeria.
Let me try and break down the implications of the plan to raise the age limit proposed by the minister. Assuming I gain admission into a public university at age 18 for a four year program, and assuming Osodeke’s ASUU is merciful to go on strike for one cumulative year over the four year period, I would be graduating at age 23, the age Mark Zuckerberg became a billionaire in US Dollar! Add the compulsory one year national youth service, I would not be ready for the labour market until I turn 24. This means I would have been well disadvantaged compared to my peers in other climes who are ready for the labour market at age 20. In an increasingly competitive and globalized economy, Nigerian graduates would not be competing as global talents.
Let’s look at it differently. If I complete my secondary school education at age 16 this June (majority of Nigerians finish secondary school between the ages 16 and 18; now with the preponderance of private schools, age 17 is the norm) what does the minister expect me to do for the next two years; where does he expect me to be between now and 2026 when I would be gaining admission into his university? This is clearly unthinkable. Public policies require rigorous scrutiny before they are implemented because they affect the public. The minister of education should be advised to perish his thought of taking us back to yesteryears. If the minister doesn’t know what to do with tertiary education in Nigeria, let me give him a job: adequately fund all federal higher educational institutions, and then hold the authorities in those institutions to account. If you do this alone, you would have solved over half of the problems that plague our tertiary schools.
Thankfully, I am not the only person with this view. And on the same day that I saw Ezekwezile’s post, The PUNCH newspaper helped me fight this battle in its editorial titled “Age limit for varsity admissions backward”. The editorial’s first and third sentences speak my mind: “While the Nigerian territory education landscape is plagued with problems that demand urgent attention, the Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, seems interested in exploring a controversial policy. This is a backward proposal; it should be consigned to the dustbin”.
In fact, by prescribing admission requirements for universities, the federal government is indirectly saying that universities are not mature enough to determine who should gain admission into their campuses. In today’s world, there is truly no need to organize unified or uniformed admission examinations for students going into tertiary schools. With tUTME, it is the federal government that is admitting students into states-owned and private institutions. If this is not the case at the primary and secondary schools levels, why do so at the tertiary schools level? Individual schools should be allowed to set standards and requirements for admitting students into their institutions. The end users of these institutions’ products set standards for employing them too. Unfortunately, ASUU which is supposed to be advocating for this, is asking for both university autonomy and federal controls at the same time.
I am hoping that this retrogressive policy will not see the light of the day as there is no light in it! And as The OUNCH editorial concluded: “So, the age limit requirement is a chasing after shadows, it must be dropped”.
Esiere is a former journalist!
